It’s showtime!

Creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s beloved character is back! Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is out now in theatres.

Tim Burton returns as a director along with the original cast consisting of Michael Keaton as Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetlejuice,) and Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara reprising their roles as Lydia and Delia Deetz.

They are joined by Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega and Willem Dafoe.

Taking place 36 years after the events of Beetlejuice (1988) the sequel follows the Deetz family’s return to Winter River after an unexpected family tragedy.

Soon enough, chaos returns to the household after Lydia’s teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna) finds a mysterious portal to the afterlife.

Tim had not expected to revisit one of his earliest hits, but said he had been encouraged by making Wednesday for Netflix in 2022 and decided it was time to check in again with the anarchic demon Betelgeuse, played by Michael.

“In the past couple of years I got a bit disillusioned with the movie industry, you could say ... this movie was re-energising, kind of getting back to the things that I love doing,” Tim said.

After a string of early successes, including Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood in the early 1990s, more recent outings have been less fruitful, including the 2019 live-action remake of Disney’s Dumbo, which was panned by critics.

“I’m not out to do like a big sequel for money or anything like that, I just wanted to make this for very personal reasons,” Tim said.

He also recalled the overwhelming emotions of reuniting for the second instalment.

“I almost started crying the first time I saw these people again,” he said.

“I did! I cried,” Winona added in an interview. “I get emotional talking about it sometimes. It was like falling back into it, like no time had passed.”

Considered a ‘goth culture’ pioneer in the American film industry, the 66-year-old director and producer is known for his work that incorporates ‘spooky’ elements, thus making a majority of his films considered to be ‘Halloween staples’. His previous projects include Corpse Bride (2005) and Big Eyes (2014).

The critically praised original dark fantasy film, Beetlejuice, won Best Horror Film and Best Make-up awards at the 1988 Saturn Awards and earned the Academy Award for Best Makeup (by artists Steve La Porte, Ve Neill, and Robert Short) in 1989.

The film’s success was also followed by an animated television series that ran from 1989 until 1991 and as a 2018 stage musical.